Page 2 of Reaper Razed

I’m not sure who curses what, but all I know is that I don’t say anything. I freeze. I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. My heart’s pounding in my chest, my vision’s blurring, my mind’s racing, and still, I can’t speak.

The next moments cause what can only be described as some kind of breakdown. I witness my wife, the love of my life, my soulmate, my other fucking half, my everything, rear up against the railings and launch herself into the air, five fucking stories up, dragging what can only be described as about a 250 lb man over the railing and plummeting to the ground. He goes directly head first into the pavement, and she breaks her fall on the railings of the balcony on the other side before dropping to the concrete, then dead.

That’s the only possible outcome. There’s no movement from either of them, nothing, just nothing.

“Hey, son, you need to breathe, okay?” I feel his hands on my shoulders. Looking up at him, I now realise I’m sitting on the floor. I must have slid down the door. The reason my vision’s blurry is that I'm crying, literally tears streaming down my face. I’m gasping as if something is gripping my throat or my heart and stopping the air from getting to my lungs and the blood from circulating.

“Steel!” Bernie says again, trying to get my attention. “She’s gonna be okay. It’s Ray, don’t write her off just yet, okay?”

Dice cuts in, “They cut the feed right there. The last we see is of the two of them on the concrete, then nothing. I've checked all the feeds, and they cut them at the same time. I can’t find her… I can’t fucking find her.”

Clearly, the panic attack I’m having has now decided it isn’t the time and has fucked off as I rear up, rip the door open, and storm through the clubhouse. No one questions me. They know where I’m going, and they’re right behind me. We mount up and ride out without a word.

As the hotel comes into view, there are a few people milling around, but nothing suspicious, no armoured vehicles or men in full tactical gear, just civilians coming in and out of the hotel.

Pulling up around the corner, I head to the alleyway. When I get there, there’s nothing, well, nothing apart from two “cleaned” patches on the concrete. I drop to my knees and just stare into the alleyway.

“Steel, we need to go. We need to regroup and recheck the footage second by second. We will find her!”

“She’s gone…” I let out a shaky breath. “She’s really fucking gone!”

“Steel,” Bernie barks, “we need to go.” He grabs me under one arm as Ares grabs the other and drags me back to the bikes …

…I’m back at the clubhouse. I don’t know how I got here. I’m numb. I’ve got tequila in my hand. I don’t know how long I’ve had it, but I can’t taste it. I can hear chatter around me, and I can’t bring myself to care what anyone’s saying.

I can hear Ares barking orders, but I don’t care at who. I stand and push the stool back. It skitters across the floor, and I turn and walk across the room. It feels like I’m in a trance. People are talking to me, touching my shoulders, but I just keep walking. I push through the door and head home. Home. That doesn’t even sound right now. At least it’s all dark in the apartment. At least I don’t have to face the girls.

I walk into our room. It smells like her. I lay face down on the bed, and it smells like her. I cry myself to sleep, and all the time, it smells like her.

Dice

Ares is barking orders at everyone, trying to come up with a plan to find Ray. Steel is sitting at the bar, but he’s not here since he found those two “clean” patches of concrete in the alleyway. It doesn’t look good. Someone’s cleaning up a mess, removing traces, erasing answers.

I’m mourning for my best friend, my ride-or-die, my reason for breathing these days. She’s given me so much life and fun I didn't realise I was missing till she bulldozed in and crashed into us all.

I look over at Steel again. He’s just sitting there. He’s had that same glass of tequila for an hour. I know because I have my own glass of tequila. It’s Ray's favourite, but I can’t bring myself to drink it. I’m sitting at our table, nearly as spaced as Steel, nearly as broken as Steel, nearly as lost as Steel, he shoves up off his stool and strides out of the place, not hearing or seeing a single person, and I decide to do the same, I head to the only place I can be useful… the tech room.

I painstakingly make my way through every frame of the alley cam. I watch, rewatch and watch it again. I keep checking, and the cameras are back live again. I've checked everything I can find. I’ve checked the footage from inside the hotel.

I have stills printed of all eight guys' faces who stormed the place pinned to the wall. I’ve crossed the one off who clearly nosedived into the concrete while running searches on the others in the background. I’ve cleaned up the footage of Ray in the alleyway, and I’m sitting watching it over and over again to see if I can see her blink, or breathe, or anything, but… wait, is that a finger twitch? Rewind again, rewatch, rewind, rewatch. It fucking is!

Her finger twitches. It fucking twitches! I take a deep breath, and that’s when the tears of relief come. I sit and sob. It’s stupid, really, as it could be an involuntary muscle spasm. She could be injured, seriously injured, or even dead, but that single twitch, that motherfucking, goddamned, minute twitch, has given me hope, and fuck, if I didn’t need it right about now.

I set off again, trawling the screens. I find a store over the road whose camera looks into the alleyway. Fucking jackpot. I see Ray drop. I see her hit the floor, and then she’s there for a while not moving, then there’s a bus that pulls across in front of the camera, one of those open-top tour bus things, and when it moves… she’s fucking gone.

Wait, what? Back up and rewatch. Vanished! The mess of a guy is still in the alleyway, and… she’s gone. I can’t see where she went. I can’t see if she walks off or if someone takes her, but the next thing I see is the armoured car coming. The men pour out and clean up, checking the hotel footage. It must have been them that cut the feeds. The feeds nearby stop as Ray lays on the floor. They must have missed this store’s footage and thank fuck!

They clean the two patches after gathering up their guy or what’s left of him and leave. I rewind it and watch it all again before running into the bar. Bernie and Ares are asleep, propped up in the booths. Priest and Tank are at our table, asleep on it. “She’s alive… I think?” I scream as I run into the bar.

They all startle. “Get Steel!” Bernie barks.

“No, watch it first. I don't want to be wrong. I can't be wrong. Watch it first. Come on.”

We all run back to the tech room and watch and rewatch it. “Fuck, did she walk away from that? If she did, where the fuck is she?” Ares is pacing. “I can’t tell Steel till I know for definite. You saw him last night… fuck… he’s broken. I’ve never seen him even remotely that low, ever.”

We watch it again and again. It's coming up for 9 a.m. “We've watched it enough to get Steel,” I say to Ares. “He’s least likely to punch you.”

He nods and heads out the door.

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